Published 4:00 am, Sunday, February 15, 2004

Photo: ROBERT SPENCER

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Supporters of gay marriage link arms and sing "God Bless America" at the Statehouse in Boston late Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004. A weary Massachusetts Legislature suspended debate Thursday on a proposed gay marriage ban after two days of tense negotiations. The constitutional convention will resume March 11. (AP Photo/Robert Spencer) less

Mike Holland (left) and his partner Jim Gatteau draped themselves in red, white, blue - and rainbow - for the rally. The couple, together for eight months, don't want to rush into a marriage. Supporters of same-sex marriages held a rally in front of the State Capitol on 2/14/04 in Sacramento. PAUL CHINN / The Chronicle less

Mike Holland (left) and his partner Jim Gatteau draped themselves in red, white, blue - and rainbow - for the rally. The couple, together for eight months, don't want to rush into a marriage. Supporters of ... more

2004-02-15 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- The stars have aligned this year, or some say misaligned, to ensure that the 2004 presidential race will turn not only on the war in Iraq, but on a culture war at home.

The events of the past week alone -- a political brawl in Massachusetts over a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and San Francisco's challenge to California's voter-ratified same-sex marriage ban -- ensure nothing less.

Or will it be 1996, when Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages after Hawaii's top court ruled such marriages legal and handed Republicans a political weapon that terrified Democrats?

Civil rights movements have a habit of challenging society's comfort zone, and this is no exception. While enthralling the right flank of the Republican Party, the timing of the same-sex marriage debate is making nearly everyone else cringe: GOP moderates, swing voters, ethnic minority voters, gay activists and -- certainly not least -- Democrats, particularly a Massachusetts Democrat who hopes to unseat President Bush.

"The volatile nature of the marriage issue has been proven in state after state, where long, longtime friends of the gay community turn tail and run when confronted with this issue," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The fear, he said, is that "we are going to be the Willie Hortons of this election cycle."

A chain of historic events began building last summer just as the presidential race got under way. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that a decades-old Texas sodomy statute criminalizing gay relationships violated the U.S. Constitution. By July, two Canadian provinces were issuing marriage licenses to gays and lesbians. "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and later "The L Word" premiered on national television. In November, a one-vote majority of the Massachusetts high court -- after delaying its decision for months -- ruled that the state cannot discriminate against gays and lesbians in marriage.

In case there was any misunderstanding, the court clarified on Feb. 4 that the Democratic politicians' favorite fallback, the parallel institution of civil unions, was unacceptable.

"The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal," the Massachusetts court declared.

Last week, a bruising constitutional convention over a same-sex marriage ban embroiled the Massachusetts Legislature, with national activists on both sides swarming the Boston Commons, and putting Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential front-runner, in the hot seat. The convention adjourned at midnight Thursday with no resolution, to resume March 11.

Kerry opposes a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, which has galvanized many social and religious conservative groups and could be debated in Congress this summer.

But the senator has sought to avoid the state constitutional amendment fight in his own backyard, which is where Democrats will be holding their nominating convention this July.

In an interview last week on National Public Radio, Kerry was asked whether he would support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in his own state.

"Well, that depends entirely on the language of whether it permits civil union and partnership or not," he replied.

Calls for a clarification were not returned, but that response at best muddies Kerry's position on constitutional amendments.

Bush, having avoided for months an explicit endorsement of a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, now appears ready to do so, say activists close to the White House.

"I wish we were so organized that we could actually get the Supreme Court to do one thing one month and the Episcopal Church to do another thing another month and Bravo to do something else another month," Foreman said. "We knew for a long time that one state would do what Alaska and Hawaii did going on 10 years ago (recognize same-sex marriage). The exact timing we didn't know. But what's caught us and everyone by surprise is this amazing confluence of events that has really just brought gay issues to unprecedented attention and focus in the public eye."

Responding to the Massachusetts fight, San Francisco upped the ante this week when Mayor Gavin Newsom, in an act of municipal disobedience, began issuing marriage licenses to hundreds of gay and lesbian couples.

That prompted this blast from Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment: "Our nation has a set of activist judges in Massachusetts and a rogue mayor in San Francisco. It is evident that they will openly aid and abet the homosexual lobby. These events over the past week clearly show that gay activists will skirt the law to create a new privilege that has never existed in this country."

Gay activists put up a stoic front, but they are alarmed by the backlash. Religious conservatives have found a new font of political energy, and soon after the Supreme Court's June decision in Lawrence vs. Texas, they began making Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment a litmus test for their support in 2004.

Four years ago, Bush actually courted gay voters as a compassionate conservative, "a uniter, not a divider," meeting a dozen gay Republicans in Austin, Texas, and proclaiming as he emerged from the room that he was a better man for it. He won a quarter of the gay vote in 2000, according to post- election surveys.

But he did not win the enthusiasm of the religious conservatives who give Republicans electoral victories, a lesson that White House political czar Karl Rove has taken to heart, noting that 4 million evangelicals stayed home in November 2000.

Social conservatives argue that nothing short of a constitutional amendment can stop the courts from ultimately overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, which excludes gay couples from federal benefits tied to marriage, such as citizenship for immigrant partners, and allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.

Until the Massachusetts decision, the federal law could not be tested because same-sex marriage did not exist. On May 17, it probably will, in Massachusetts.

Bush has hesitated, inching toward endorsing a ban but never actually doing so. Yet he elevated the issue to his State of the Union address in January, vowing, "If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process ... Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."

Bush's hesitation points to the fear and division that an amendment raises within his own party.

Federal intervention in marriage -- the quintessential state domain -- is anathema to many Republicans. No less than Vice President Dick Cheney made this case in 2000. Even Bob Barr, the former Georgia congressman who wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, said, "The Constitution is no place for forcing social policy on states, especially in this case."

Many Republicans note that despite polls showing strong public opposition to same-sex marriage, opinion is divided on amending the Constitution to stop it. They fear a backlash among moderate voters who dislike extremism and may decide the presidential election for what is a deeply polarized electorate.

"They don't want to see a commander in chief of a culture war, they want to see a commander in chief period," said Charles Francis, an openly gay friend of the Bush family and founder of the Republican Unity Coalition, which seeks to unite gays and party moderates.

"The country is divided right down the middle, 49-49, and even though every party wants to motivate its base, this election is going to be decided by folks in the middle," Francis said. Gay Republicans warn that if Bush endorses the amendment, he will be committing the same blunder that former California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson did in embracing an anti-immigrant proposition to win a tightly contested election -- alienating for years afterward a huge and growing bloc of Latino voters.

"As conservative Republicans, we are outraged that any Republican -- particularly the leader of our party and this nation -- would support any effort to use our sacred United States Constitution as a way of scoring points in an election year," declared Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, the major gay Republican political group.

If Bush endorses a constitutional amendment, warned Francis, "The stampede you hear will be 1 million gay voters who voted for President Bush, gone, and their families gone, and their friends gone. Like California Hispanics who permanently walked out of the GOP after Proposition 187, gay voters will be gone in that same final way."

Religious conservatives insist that polls showing strong public opposition to same-sex marriage prove that fear of a swing-voter backlash against Republicans are overblown. They point to the nearly universal reluctance of Democrats, including Kerry, to support such marriages.

"They wish that were true, but why then are gay activists and liberal politicians telling everybody that everyone ought to stay away from this issue?" asked Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women of America. "They know it's radioactive for them. This is the Achilles heel for liberal politicians. But only if conservative politicians make it an issue."

Still, Bush has been extremely careful to shade his opposition to same- sex marriage in terms of treating gays with "dignity and respect." White House spokesman Scott McClellan repeated last week that Bush's stand against same- sex marriage was "an issue of principle" and a defensive move to protect heterosexual marriage, not an attack on gays and lesbians.

Whether religious conservatives will heed such nuance is another matter.

Knight scoffs at the notion that the 1992 culture war cost Bush's father the election, saying it was Clinton's push to let gays serve openly in the military that led to the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.

"The culture war was played out in '94 and you had 4 million more evangelical Christians voting because of that divide than you did in the year 2000 when these issues were muted," Knight said. "That almost cost G.W. Bush the election. If he makes the same mistake this time around, you can't say he wasn't warned."

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